Political Insider

By Cochise

March 8, 2008 1:10 PM | Link to this

The gamesmanship at the State House is so harmful to good government. The Republicans attach a good idea (car tax repeal) to a bad piece legislation just to make hay against the Dems when they step up and do the right thing. Same thing happened this week when the GOPers sneaked the auto insurance raise through attached at the end of another bill.

By BobG

March 8, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this

Senators,

Earlier this week, the House failed to approve SR-796, Sen. Chip Rogers’ constitutional amendment to impose a statewide assessment “freeze” and other restrictions on local taxing authority. The resolution became the vehicle for other tax reform efforts including a plan to eliminate the ad valorem tax on automobiles.

The most prevalent argument against SR-796 was its effect on local control of tax revenue generation. The argument is a valid one; SR-796 would have imposed “one size fits all” restrictions that could not address all situations. In many cases, taxing authorities could have been prevented from raising badly-needed funds. Even worse, I can easily illustrate how SR-796 would have ELIMINATED the tax cut— never again would a Georgia property owner’s tax rate DECREASE.

But what if you could achieve the goals of the original SR-796 without affecting local control of revenue generation? What if a simple law (actually, just correcting a deficiency of the current tax law) could eliminate the “back door tax increase” resulting from rising assessments? Even better, what if you could enact a law that would guarantee that, as assessments increase tax bills actually DECREASE, as long as the politicians hold the line on spending?

You would have accomplished all that SR-796 was intended to do, and more!

Even better, what if your law would make local officials completely accountable for their spending? What if a single number could be the taxpayers’ reliable indicator of their elected officials’ ability to manage the cost of government? And what if local politicians could be FORCED to reduce government spending or enact innovative ways to generate NON-TAX revenue?

I invite you to visit MillageRate.com which details a GUARANTEED solution to the problems with the property tax system that you attempted to address this session.

This is no harebrained scheme— I simply encourage you to codify the procedure for calculating the property tax millage rate that has been taught by the Department of Revenue to tax commissioners, assessors and appraisers, and Board of Equalization members for decades.

Here is the link to draft legislation, if you’re interested.

By JR

March 9, 2008 8:53 AM | Link to this

The car tax bill was sound politically, but it was never part of SR796 until the eleventh hour. After HR1246 was exposed, the least onerous part, car tax removal, was attached to bad legislation - SR796. This was a political gamble that did not pay off for the Republicans, or did it? There is a great deal of speculation that this was done intentionally by the House Republican leadership with the full knowledge that it would fail but it would at least give them something of an issue in the fall, i.e. blame the Democrats, when they could have had car tax removal all along if they had really wanted it. This was never about tax relief. It was about politics and motivating the base, i.e. getting them to polls in November - just another political game being played!